


Angel of Music

by liberosis32



Category: Supernatural
Genre: All the cucumber water vibes, Bi!Dean, Dean is a fanboy, Destiel - Freeform, Eventual Sex, M/M, Musicals, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Sam knows what's up, human!cas - freeform, sketchy NYC sleeping accommodations, subsequent bed sharing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-18
Updated: 2018-04-18
Packaged: 2019-04-24 13:19:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14356320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liberosis32/pseuds/liberosis32
Summary: When actresses start vanishing after Phantom of the Opera finally closes on Broadway, Team Free Will heads to NYC to investigate.





	Angel of Music

**Author's Note:**

> So this is the start of a multi-chapter work, though I'm not sure how long it will be in total yet. Cas is human because I'm a sucker for human!Cas, but feel free to headcanon for yourself where it falls in the show's timeline.

It was the damn Phantom of the Opera come to life.

“I’m thinking tolpa,” Sam said, after reading off the various news articles covering the string of disappearances that had happened backstage at the Broadway theatre. Three performers, all of them lead actresses, had vanished over the course of a year. One for each show that had been mounted, ever since Phantom had closed. 

“What, so, all the nerdy theatre-goers get their panties in a wad after the classic closes, and a tolpa comes out of it?” Dean said. “How do we know somebody didn’t just say Macbeth and get the theatre cursed?”

Sam shrugged. “That could be it. Who’s to say whether that old superstition’s our kind of thing or not.”

“But you think we should go to New York.” 

“I think we need to go to New York.”

Dean sighed. He hated New York. It was impossible to park anywhere. He lived in a constant state of anxiety over whether some dumbass cab driver with something to prove would nick his Baby by turning too fast. And the subway? Yikes. 

“If we’re going,” Dean said, “You’ve gotta do the tour with me.”

Now it was Sam’s turn to sigh. Every time they’d been forced into Manhattan for some case or another, Dean had insisted on dragging him through a self-guided tour of rock n’ roll’s most famous NYC landmarks. The ritual had gone redundant three visits ago.

“Tour?” That was Cas, appearing in the archway that led from the library to the bedrooms.

“Cas! Hey,” Dean said, latching onto his literal saving grace. “You’ve gotta come on this case with us. Sam’s a total spoilsport about it, but the one good thing about New York City is the rock n’ roll history, and I’m not about to let you miss out.”

Cas’ eyes lit up at the invitation, and his lips ticked up at the corners. It was so subtle, anyone else might have missed it, but Dean was more attuned to Cas’ expressive nuances than most others.

More attuned than he cared to admit.

 

 

They left that afternoon. It took two days of straight driving to get to Manhattan, and when they finally reached the Lincoln tunnel, Dean found himself once again cursing the high tolls and the lack of visible sky. It was a grey, drizzling, cramped, depressing place.

“So, if we’re going to investigate the one theater, we might as well see some other shows too,” Sam said, clearly trying to be casual with the suggestion.

Cas blinked in the back seat, oblivious, but Dean instantly shot Sam a death glare. “We’re not here to karaoke a bunch of hoity-toity showtunes. We’re here to solve the case, and get _out_.”

“There are rock and roll musicals now, you know,” said Sam.

“Yeah, I do know,” said Dean. “A bunch of freaks with jazz hand kinks going after the sacred canon. It’s cultural appropriation, is what it is.” 

“Don’t knock it till you try it,” Sam said, and leaned his head against the rain-spattered window glass, giving up for now. 

Cas leaned forward from the backseat. “I wouldn’t mind seeing these shows, Dean. I liked the television I’ve seen so far. I would imagine live theater is even more of an experience.”

Dean tightened his grip on the wheel. “Well, other than the one for the case, maybe we can see _one_ show. Just so you can see for yourself how pointless they are.”

 

 

The other tough thing about New York was finding an affordable yet discreet hotel that wasn’t a full step under their already low standards. The first night, they stayed in a scuzzy basement room that was only separated from its counterparts by wall dividers. There were two beds, and a stained sleeping bag on the floor that came “complimentary” with their stay.

“Okay,” said Dean, picking up the sleeping bag by its corner and giving it a nasty up-and-down onceover. He didn’t dare try to identify the origin of the stain. “It’s late, so this is fine for now. But we’re finding someplace else tomorrow, added cost be damned.”

“Agreed,” said Sam, eyeing the Styrofoam cup of unidentifiable liquid that had been left on the nightstand between the two actual beds.

They started to get ready for bed. The bathroom was a communal setup for the other two basement “rooms,” and Dean waited a solid twenty minutes outside the sunken wooden door before a teenage dude with more acne than clear skin emerged, along with a literal cloud of smoke. 

“Man, if you’re gonna smoke pot, you could at least be considerate about it,” Dean griped.

The kid went wide-eyed with embarrassment. He offered Dean an already smoked-to-a-pulp joint. Dean waved it away and went to brush his teeth; hopefully he could get the grit from New York’s greasy air mostly scrubbed away.

About seven minutes later, when Dean returned to their sketchy sleeping quarters, he saw Sam and Cas had already claimed the two beds, which left him the sleeping bag. Sam was already passed out, but Cas was still up, flipping through the Bible from the night stand.

Dean thought about complaining, but then decided there wasn’t much point, since he’d been planning to volunteer himself for the sleeping bag anyway. He started to sink down onto the floor –

“Dean. What are you doing?” Asked Cas, looking up from the book.

“Going to bed, what’s it look like I’m doing?” Dean nodded towards the sleeping bag.

“It looks like you’re going to contract gonorrhea,” said Cas. “STDs don’t just spread through human-to-human physical contact. You can’t smell the bacteria on the fabric?”

Dean blinked at him. A memory flashed behind his eyes of Cas being able to identify a UTI on a corpse just by sniffing the body. He promptly took a big step back from the sleeping bag.

“Uh…” Dean started. He wasn’t quite sure what to do. “Damn it. They only had the one room open when we checked in…” 

“A surprise, definitely, given the, uh… conditions,” Cas empathized.

 “Yeah,” said Dean. He stared at the empty space beside Cas in the bed. “Yeah.”

Cas followed Dean’s eyes, then his own widened. “Dean, I didn’t just inconsiderately take the bed. I assumed we would be sharing sleeping accommodations, given the situation with the sleeping bag.” 

“Ha, no, sure,” said Dean. He could feel the back of his neck growing hot. This was the absolute opposite of convenient. “That’s… you know, maybe if you just handed me the, the comforter, and a pillow – “

“You’re not sleeping on the floor, Dean,” said Cas. “That would be needlessly ridiculous.”

Needlessly ridiculous. Right.

“Okay,” said Dean, forcing himself to commit to the situation. “Okay, uh, buddy. Scoot over.”

Cas did. Dean slid into bed next to him. He stared up at the water stained ceiling, trying not to move or twitch or breathe. 

“Uh, Dean?” Asked Cas.

Dean jolted just a little. He hoped it hadn’t been noticeable. It probably had been. “Yeah?”

“If you could turn off the lamp – “

“Oh, yeah, yeah, sure,” said Dean. He hastened to reach over and turn off the lamp. They were plunged instantly into darkness.

Dean had thought this would be better, but it was definitely worse. Until his eyes got adjusted to the lack of light, all his other senses were heightened. Cas was so close, right there, even if they weren’t actually touching… the tease of kinetic energy was bound to drive him mad.

“Do you have enough space?” Cas whispered, a little too loud for the blank darkness.

“Y-yeah,” Dean whispered back, much quieter, trying to set a precedent with the volume level.

“You seem tense.”

“Do I?” Dean said, like it was news to him. He doubted Cas believed him. He didn’t even sound convincing to himself. “Huh.”

Dean could feel Cas waiting for him to either say something further or lose the tension altogether. He did neither. Eventually Cas gave up and scooted several inches away, silently giving him more space even though he hadn’t asked. 

That, at least, let Dean relax. He felt more comfortable with the two of them scooted so close to their respective edges, they were literally on the verge of falling off the bed entirely.

Of course, comfortable didn’t necessarily mean Dean liked the situation better. The proximity had been… nice.

Too nice for comfort, really.

 

 

Dean only got about two hours of sleep that night. Mostly because even after he finally convinced himself to conk out, his biological clock woke him up long before the sun rose. Like his unconscious brain was trying to spare him the trauma of Cas waking up and noticing something _else_ had ‘risen’ during the night too.

Biology was the worst.

While Dean waited for the morning to finally honor them with its presence, he hung out in the threadbare armchair in the corner of the room, scrolling through his phone to remind himself of all the music landmarks he wanted to show Cas. The Zeppelin-related ones were obvious, like Electric Lady Studios, and the building that had ended up as the album sleeve design for _Physical Graffiti_.

Dean didn’t want to admit it to himself in so many words, but he really, really wanted to make this fun for Cas. He’d already somehow messed up the tour enough Sam was fed up with the whole thing. Which was fine, because Sam had his own things he was into. But it would be nice, just once, just one time, to get to revel in a little bit of shared enthusiasm.

Then, before he knew it, the sun was leaking through the tiny window carved into the cinderblock walls, and Sam’s alarm was blasting through the quiet with a jarring blare. It woke Sam, Cas, and whoever the hell was sleeping on the other side of the thin wall-divider.

“Holy fucking hell, shut up you shits!” Cried a raspy voice. Whoever it was could be heard climbing out of bed and trying to bang on the divider. They must have tripped in the process, because the effort was followed by the sound of a clatter and a bunch of swears.

“Good morning to you too, Sunshine,” Dean muttered, grinning a little.

He’d _mean_ t the sarcastic comment for at the stranger on the other side of the divider, but Cas, initially grumpy and bleary-eyed from sleep, positively _lit up_ at the endearment.

“And to you as well, Dean,” Cas replied. 

Sam looked back and forth between them. He was still half asleep himself, but that didn’t stop him from bitch-facing the hell out of Dean’s awkward stammered response. 

“It’s too early for this crap,” Sam muttered, and dragged himself the rest of the way out of bed.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Please consider leaving kudos or comments if you have time, but if not, thank you for reading all the same!


End file.
